the Interior Minister Patrick Dewael said on television Monday. Extra security measures have been in place in Brussels since December 21 after a suspected escape plan emerged concerning jailed Tunisian Al-Qaeda sympathiser Nizar Trabelsi.

The Belgian capital's traditional New Year's Eve fireworks display has already been cancelled to minimise possible targets for any attack. "We're on the maximum level -- the maximum means beyond that which we would ordinarily apply for New Year's Eve, beyond the level that applies in other European capitals," the minister told the RTL-TVI station.

"There are other intelligence reports about which I cannot say any more," he added.

The United Nations officially began a new peacekeeping effort on Monday in the Darfur region of western Sudan in a ceremony that transferred power from the African Union. The Sudanese government had spent months resisting admission of the international force.

The peacekeeping force will be staffed far below the levels set by the United Nations Security Council when it voted unanimously in July to deploy 26,000 troops to try to stop the violence in Darfur. The region has been mired in bloodshed and chaos for four years, as government forces and government-equipped militias have clashed with rebel groups, leaving at least 200,000 civilians dead and 2.5 million villagers homeless.As planned, the peacekeeping force would have been the largest such effort in the world, costing about $2 billion in its first year and drawing on military and police forces from the African Union and the United Nations.

Instead, after months of wrangling, the force that made its debut on Monday was 9,000 strong, United Nations officials said. Experts worry that it may never get to the level where it will make any difference in the region’s troubles.

"It said the UN Security Council received an agreement as far back as June from Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to accept UNAMID 'without preconditions.'

'And yet the deployment of UNAMID is still facing government obstruction with respect to the force composition and bureaucratic impediments imposed by the Sudanese authorities,' the UN said in a background document. It said the impediments threatened the deployment and detract the hybrid force from its 'potential effectiveness.'

'The persistence of these impediments cannot be attributed to a lack of consultation,' the document said.

The UN has criticized Khartoum for being selective in accepting nationalities of military personnel and deciding which countries should provide the much-needed logistical and transport facilities.

Khartoum had given its preference to African personnel only but has had to accept non-African forces. It rejected troops from Nepal, Nordic engineers and an infantry battalion from Thailand.

The UN has been calling on governments to provide helicopters to assist UNAMID, but so far no country in the world has offered a single helicopter. The United States has offered neither troops nor aircraft, and the UN has not asked for US contributions, knowing that Khartoum would surely object to a US presence in Sudan.

Tension between the African neighbours has risen as the European Union is due to start deploying up to 4,000 troops to Chad and the Central African Republic to help deal with the refugee crisis stemming from Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region over their eastern border.

I wonder, will this be the year that this kind of terror comes to the US?

Someplace like South Beach, or Vegas or New Orleans? I pray not.

Their targets were a karaoke bar just a 100 meters from a police station and a discotheque at a hotel (where the bombs were planted behind speakers) After the explosion the partiers fled, running to their cars and motorbikes in the parking lot. That's when the third bomb went off. It was strapped to a parked motorcycle.

Calling them militants, separatists, miscreants, insurgents, Asians, ethnics or whatever the loony libs are calling the Muslim murderers these days does not change the fact that they are Islamothugs who will stop at nothing to impose their will and they need to be stopped. It's important to note:

More than 2800 people have been killed in four years of separatist violence in Thailand's south.

This makes me feel a little better...Members of the special forces are already believed to be nearby in neighboring Afghanistan and are on alert, awaiting orders to launch the mission. Satellite surveillance of Pakistan has also been heightened to keep track of the possible movement of nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems.

This doesn't....Internal security at Pakistan’s nuclear storage sites is the responsibility of a 10,000-man security force commanded by a two-star general. Every member of the force is vetted with the aim of weeding out sympathisers of the Taliban and al Qaeda or anyone with extreme Islamic views.

US diplomatic and military initiatives since 2001 have concentrated on trying to ensure that pro-western commanders were in charge at the most sensitive sites.

There has also been pressure to keep Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, thought to contain a number of high-ranking pro-Taliban supporters, out of the nuclear loop.

"It's worrying when half of your lower or mid-level Pak intelligence analysts have bin Laden screen-savers on their computers."

The conclusion of a number of U.S. analysts is that al-Qaida and other jihadis have successfully penetrated the armed forces and security services in Pakistan. Backing up their theory that pro-extremists found sympathy and support among influential people in the Pakistani security forces, the sources cited the example of Rashi Rauf, the prime suspect in a recent plot to blow up 10 U.S. passenger airplanes in the United Kingdom last year. Rauf escaped last week while being taken from court in Rawalpindi. The prime suspects are the security personnel, who some believe, have facilitated Rauf's escape, the sources said.

Of the seven or eight attempts to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf, two took place in December 2003 when rockets were fired at his vehicle during a visit to Rawalpindi, the same city where Bhutto was killed on Thursday.

Then there was the attempt to fire on his plane with an anti-aircraft gun in early 2007. There were also two suicide attacks on the Army's General HQ and two attacks outside the offices of the ISI, after Pakistani security forces, on Musharraf's orders, assaulted the Red Mosque, the Lal Masjid, in Islamabad last July when Islamists retrenched inside the mosque with scores of hostages.

Following the two attacks on Musharraf, junior army and air force officers were arrested. The ensuing investigation discovered that they had ties with Jaish-e-Mohammad, an Islamist group. In the rocket attack, the son of an army brigadier general was arrested.

The source says, however, that only lower-ranking army officials were arrested and court-martialed. The investigations are dead in the water.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

says none other than James Yee? (like he's kidding right?)CONFESSED terrorism supporter David Hicks poses no threat to society now he has been released from jail, a former United States Muslim army chaplain says.Hicks was released from Adelaide's Yatala prison on Saturday, more than six years after being captured in Afghanistan.

During the five-and-a-half years Hicks spent in a US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba he had regular contact with then army chaplain James Yee.

Mr Yee does not believe he poses any threat to the Australian community.

"None whatsoever," he told ABC radio today.

"I'm reading all this stuff that he was trained in these terrorist training camps but I'm telling you any American soldier who has gone through basic training has had 50 times more training than this guy."

Dear James, you don't necessarily have to be good at it to be considered a terrorist. Did you ever think he was just a bad terrorist?

The seven opposition figures had signed a "Damascus Declaration" calling for radical change that united communist, nationalist, liberal and Kurdish parties and formed a National Council to press for its implementation.

France is to suspend diplomatic contacts with Syria, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced. Links will be restored only when France has proof that Syria is not blocking progress towards installing a consensus president in Lebanon, Mr Sarkozy said. Lebanon has been without a president since November, as rival pro- and anti- Syrian factions argue over who should fill the post. "I ask Syria to... work to create agreement," said Mr Sarkozy.

France "will not make any more contacts with Syria... as long as there is no proof of Syria's willingness to let Lebanon choose a consensus president," he told reporters, during a visit to Egypt.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman, said Dadullah was sacked for disobeying orders and conducting activities against the Taliban's rules and regulations. He refused to elaborate on the exact nature of the charges.

Makes you to shudder to think, doesn't it? I mean, really. What in God's name would you have to do to get bounced from the freaking Taliban?

It looks like there's a history: Mansoor's brother, dead Taliban leader, Mullah Dadullah, got fired three times by Mullah Omar for "disobeying orders and conducting grotesquely excessive massacres of civilians and prisoners." There's your Muslim overlord for ya! Let's give that man access to some nukes!

gains some credence with the release of these X-rays and pics. Where is CSI: Rawalpindi when you need them? Please note the sun roof handle with blood on it. I was having a hard time featuring what kind of handle a Toyota sunroof could have - evidently the up armoring of the vehicle had resulted to modifications of the sunroof. You can easily see that the force of the blast coupled with the size of that handle could crack your noggin like an egg. Or NOT.

From an excellent piece in the NY Times entitledThe African Front.These are some of the most extraordinary and unsettling times in Kenya’s post-independence history. The country is in the middle of a boom, its 5.7 percent annual growth rate among the highest in Africa. Shopping malls and office towers are rising in nearly every corner of Nairobi; S.U.V.’s and luxury cars fill the streets, and the traffic has gotten bad enough to invite comparisons with Bangkok. Kenya’s tourism industry has been highly sensitive to both domestic and international terrorism but is now flourishing. And while the country is still plagued by corruption, tribalism and poverty, the one-party rule that gripped Kenya for four decades — first under Jomo Kenyatta, then under President Daniel arap Moi, who voluntarily stepped down in 2002 after 24 years in power — has given way to one of Africa’s liveliest multi-party systems.

At the same time, militant Islam has also found a foothold. A sizable, largely poor Muslim population concentrated along the coast — and proximity to the volatile states in the Horn of Africa, including Somalia and Sudan — have made Kenya especially vulnerable, in the views of counter-terrorism experts, to the call for jihad. Since the early 1990s, the mosques of Mombasa and other towns have resonated with militant Islamic rhetoric. Radical imams have preached violence against Westerners, attacked the Kenyan government as the lackey of the United States and Israel and called for the implementation of Shariah. Members of the Qaeda cells that blew up the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Aug. 7, 1998, were recruited in mosques near the Indian Ocean beaches where hundreds of thousands of Western tourists flock each year.

Kenya is “a good place” for militant Islamists to blend in, I was told by Al Amin Kimathi, the director of the Muslim Human Rights Forum in Nairobi, which accuses the Kenyan government of discrimination against the country’s roughly four million Muslims (in a total population of 37 million). He added, only half in jest: “Even Osama Bin Laden could hang around here. He could land at the airport, spread some money around and he’d be walking.”

And there's more - including this about two candidates for the Kenyan parliament. One is the incumbent, an American educated Christian and his challenger, an Islamist engineer - who converted to Islam in college and advocates the caliphate.

Hardera, a gritty town on the Somali border... is populated almost entirely by ethnic Somalis, many of whom supported the radical Islamists who had just seized control of Mogadishu and who were angry at what they regard as U.S. machinations to unseat them with Ethiopian help. After announcing his candidacy for Kenya’s Parliament, Kura told me, Harugura addressed an outdoor gathering of Somali Muslims in Hardera. “He told the Somalis: ‘There is a Christian I am fighting against. I want to bring about an environment where all are Islamic, because our people are lost.’

Well, I'm finally back after weeks of family drama followed by three days of a bad flu. They sure call them "nuclear families" for a reason, don't they?

I must admit that this most recent bout of familial psychodrama and personal upheaval had left me "this close" to throwing in the blog towel once and for all.There are so many sites out there on the interwebs that do it so much better.

Then those bastards murdered Benazir Bhutto.

And I realized I couldn't walk away from this fight. Not just yet.

So let's get back at it with some quality linkage, shall we?

(Upon further reflection I suppose I should be counting my blessings about the state of my nuclear family - it could be worse - at least they aren't a famous political dynasty of a nuclear nation teetering on the brink of failed statehood.)

Speaking of, I just saw a clip of the young Bilawal Bhutto(his name is being changed to his mother's maiden name - you know that's got to chap an Islamist hide or two) and it surprised me just how breathtakingly young he appeared. (Video can be seen here.)

The encouraging part:"We have decided to go for elections," Zardari said. "We are grateful to Nawaz Sharif for announcing his boycott of the election but we appeal to him to end the boycott and take part."

Minutes later, spokesmen for Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-N party said they would take part in the vote, saying the decision was taken after Zardari asked him to participate when they met on Saturday.

About the bomber:Sources close to investigators said that a plastic surgeon had helped the police reconstruct the suicide bomber’s mutilated face. They said that the bomber, aged between 22 and 25 years, was a clean-shaven youngster having a normal haircut. The appearance is different from that of popularly known suicide bombers who wear long hair and thick beard.

Sources said that the police had also seized a head with bearded face from the bombing site but it later turned out to be that of a PPP activist.

(At the time the clips of the shooting came out - I thought the shooter looked more like one of those disgruntled lawyer types than a terror scumbag. And another head in addition to the shooter/bomber/scumbag - PPP activist or no just seems odd to me. Just sayin'.

About the bomb:

...forensic evidence revealed that the bomber exploded high explosives, weighing four to five kilogrammes and wrapped with hundreds of pullets and ball bearings. Sources said that the police found no striking sleeve used by the bomber for explosion. The sleeve provides vital clues to the investigators about the identity of groups involved in suicide attacks. Each group uses striking sleeve of its own for suicide missions, they said.

About the gun:

Sources said that the bomber used a 30-bore pistol and his three shots missed the target. They said that the police seized two pistols, one used by the bomber and other of an unidentified person, were in the police custody.

Due to continuation of clashes among Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) supporters and law enforcing agencies, the supply of basic necessity of life is totally stopped. Major markets in both cities are closed and the small shops located in inner parts have little stocks to feed such a huge population. As a result the prices of different items recorded upward trends. Availability of fresh vegetables and fruits are most affected items that are not available in small shops because there was no supply of such items in the market.

Closer (sic)of petrol pumps and CNG stations both in Rawalpindi and Islamabad badly affected people mobility to get food items from safe areas. However, in Islamabad some petrol pumps and CNG stations opened in afternoon and long queues were observed in such pumps. The situation in Rawalpindi is worst because the clashes still continue and all main roads totally blocked. Not a single petrol pump was open in Rawalpindi and the residents of that city are suffering heavily.

And things like thisaren't helping the situation:Separately, up to 400 PPP activists carrying banners, portraits of Bhutto and wielding bricks, tried to burst into an oilfield facility near Hyderabad before dawn, when security forces acted on orders to shoot violent protesters on sight.

The euro has fast gained ground against the dollar in international official foreign exchange reserves in recent months, according to official statistics highlighting the nine-year-old currency’s growing global importance.

Reflecting its increasing strength on foreign exchange markets, the euro’s share of known foreign exchange holdings rose to 26.4 per cent in the third quarter of this year, the International Monetary Fund reported late on Friday. That was up from 25.5 per cent in the previous three months and from 24.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2006.

The dollar’s share of known official foreign reserves, calculated in dollar terms, fell to 63.8 per cent in the third quarter, down from 66.5 per cent in the same three months of 2006.)

P.S. Thanks to all you lovely readers for your concern. Believe me when I say it's good to be back fighting the Islamic jihad with you all.

Now, nurses are being encouraged to spend valuable time turning around the beds of Muslim patients up to five times a day - so they can face Mecca.

Hospital staff in West Yorkshire must make sure Muslim patients' beds face in the direction of Mecca, in Saudi Arabia

In a bid to promote cultural understanding, they are also expected to provide patients with running water so they can wash before prayer.

And then, of course, they are required to turn the beds back around to return the wards to normality. The measures are being pursued by Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust to ensure Muslim patients have a "more comfortable stay in hospital".Hundreds of staff have attended tax-payer-funded workshops with Muslim GPs and ethnic-minority support groups on how best to help patients.

During these meetings, nurses have been told that if a patient asks for water to bathe in, or for their bed to be turned to face Mecca, then this should be considered.

If the measure is deemed "practically possible" and does not impinge on other patients, then it should be carried out.

And if it is not practical, nurses are encouraged to find them a bed that faces Mecca permanently.

But an experienced nurse at Dewsbury and District Hospital in Yorkshire where the ideas are being tested, has blasted the scheme. She said: "It would be easier to create Muslim-only wards with every bed facing Mecca than deal with this.

"We have a huge Muslim population in Dewsbury and if we are having to turn dozens of beds to face Mecca five times a day, plus provide running water before and after prayers, it is bound to impact on the essential medical service we are supposed to be providing.

"Although the beds are designed to be moved, the bays are not really suitable for having loads of beds moving around to face a different direction and, despite our best efforts, it does cause disruption for non-Muslim patients."

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Sunni lawmakers walked out of Iraq's parliament Saturday, protesting what they called the house arrest of a prominent Sunni politician.

Iraqi parliament member Adnan al-Dulaimi reportedly is confined to his home.

Troops reportedly went to the house of parliamentarian and Sunni bloc leader Adnan al-Dulaimi, two days after Iraqi and coalition troops found a car bomb outside his office compound, a member of parliament told CNN.

"The Iraqi government said that the security forces are there to protect al-Dulaimi's house, but now the Iraqi army is saying that al-Dulaimi is under house arrest," said Nada Mohammed Ibrahim, a member of parliament and the Sunni secular bloc, Iraqi National Dialogue Front.Ibrahim said security forces were banning al-Dulaimi and daughter Asmaa Adnan al-Dulaimi from leaving their house.

"This could happen to any ... member in the future, and this is not right," Ibrahim said.

Gateway Pundit has it all broken down for us nice and neat. Thanks, Jim. Since I know we won't be hearing much about this in the MSM I think I'll just email a copy to Pelosi and Reid - just to make sure someone in their camp has the info... Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

The Multi-National Force-Iraq contines to rack up some amazing results since the Bush Surge began taking shape including::** Violence in Iraq is down by 50%.** Civilian casualties in Iraq are down by 60%.** Baghdad casualties are down by 75%.** Basra violence is down by 90%.** Terrorist attacks in Iraq are down by 80%.** IED attacks down by 55%.** Average daily attacks down by 42%.** Foreign insurgent flow into Iraq down by more than 50%** Suicide bombings down 70% since March.** Foreign Terrorist flow into Iraq down by 50%.** Diyala Province violence down by 68%.

Seven men held her at knifepoint and, for a number of hours, she was subjected to a horrific gang rape.

But when she later went to the authorities, they sentenced her to 90 lashes.

She complained in the media, so the punishment was increased to 200 lashes and imprisonment. Her lawyer has been suspended for speaking out against it.

And when questioned about it what was Prince Saud al-Faisal's response? He declared what happened to be an outrage! Unfortunately, his outrage was directed at the criticism leveled at his country not what happened to Qatif girl. He's a real Prince all right. Read itall.

Is violence integral to Islam? It's a valid question. When the pope raised it, Muslims proved him wrong by threatening to cut off his head. Message: Don't call us intolerant or we'll kill you.

If this sounds "Islamophobic," a favorite retort of the Muslim-rights group CAIR, straighten us out. We looked for a condemnation of the Sudanese troglodytes on its Web site and came up short.

We did, however, find "Action Alerts" calling on Muslims to boycott radio host Michael Savage for intolerance. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and the Washington Times were also singled out for attack.

Meanwhile, CAIR is hosting a panel discussion at the National Press Club on "Islamophobia and the Political Cartoon." Apparently CAIR, like other Muslim groups, condones violent reactions to free speech.

CAIR encourages Muslims in America to improve the coverage of Islam in the media. It says they should break the stereotype of Muslims as terrorists, and that of Islam as "archaic, barbaric, irrational" and a "religion of violence."

Well, what are you waiting for? Condemn the Islamic court's punishment of an innocent teacher. Certainly CAIR doesn't agree that naming a toy animal after the Muslim prophet is a crime just because it could be considered by the most extremist hard-liner to be an insult. Or does it?

The vast majority of Americans would change their negative view of Islam if Muslims would strongly condemn such extremism. But for some reason, they won't do it.

Several commentators have noted the similarity between our modern day Democrats and the Copperheads of the Civil War. The Copperheads were the virulently anti-war wing that took control of the Democratic party in the 1860’s. Their rhetoric of the day reads like a modern press release from our Democratic Party leadership. Their central meme was that the Civil War was unwinnable and should be concluded. At their nominating convention of 1864, they...

Conservative Belletees off on (and smartly fact checks) Muslim varmint/apologist and Executive Director of the American Muslim Council, Eric Vickers about his appearance on Bill O'Reilly last night. Check it out - hysterical. I'm forwarding the link to O'Reilly as well. You can too atoreilly@foxnews.com.

On The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News tonight, Bill O'Reilly had a segment discussing the story about British teacher Gillian Gibbons. Ms. Gibbons was recently convicted of inciting religious hatred by the Sudanese government and sentenced to 15 days in jail and deportation - all for allowing students to name a teddy bear - Muhammad. One of O'Reilly's guests was Eric Vickers, Executive Director at the American Muslim Council

O'Reilly took Vickers to task over the lack of condemnation by American Muslim organizations for the actions occurring to Gibbons. In response to that accusation by O'Reilly, Vickers claimed that you could go to any Muslim organization's web site and see that every one has condemned it.I took Mr. Vickers' challenge. Here are the results from my efforts...

Fore!Ms. Tammy Brucesays it has taken a teddy bear (not a village) to illustrate how phony and empty the modern feminist movement is today. (They're not even taking the missionary position on this one!) Ouch - they might want to put some ice on that!

There has been appropriate international outrage over the treatment of Gibbons, from virtually everyone except American “feminists.” Multiple Muslim groups in the U.K. have condemned the sentence. Even the popular little boy in Mrs. Gibbons’ class who suggested the name for the bear came to her defense, explaining that he named the bear after himself.

Yet, when asked by FOX News for a comment about the situation, a National Organization for Women spokeswoman said they were "not putting out a statement or taking a position."...

Citizen Warrior hits a hole in one with his post The Jihadists How To Manual: The Quran. I'm thinking of printing this out on a handy card to distribute to all the clueless wonders out there. Excellent!

I have read the Qur'an. Every word of it, cover to cover. And I recommend you do, too. There are a lot of things in the book but if you excerpted the parts on jihad, you would get a short how-to book. That is what follows. The article below might be called, How To Wage Jihad in a Nutshell, taken from the pages of Islam's most holy book...